Chapter Five
Audrey’s beauty was… disarming. Beneath the layers of grime and blood, her smooth ivory skin glowed, and her eyes had sparked with defiance when she’d stood naked before him, daring him to look away. Brazen. Yet a faint rosy hue had spread across her chest and cheeks. He couldn’t help wondering what else would turn pink under his careful attention. Long-forgotten desires had spiraled through him as he’d waited for her to dress. He’d paced in the hall, trying to force the image of those plentiful breasts slick with soapy water out of his head. He did not need this distraction. Or the headache she would surely cause him.
Dealing with his mother and her meticulous demands never put him in a good mood, but she’d gone too far this time—threatening to dismantle his post. It wasn’t just his job, it was his home and his purpose. She had never approved, but at least she’d left him in relative peace. Until now.
What am I supposed to do with a novice?
Not just any novice either, but clearly an impossible case. It was as if his mother had set him up to fail. To what end, he couldn’t be sure.
Once they crossed the wards of his tower, he let go of Audrey’s hand and strode up the stairs at a brisk pace, wanting to put distance between them.
Audrey sighed with relief, apparently feeling the same, though probably for different reasons. He hadn’t exactly made the best first impression. For once, he was acutely aware of his scars. He kept turning his face away from her, then catching himself doing it and growing increasingly annoyed that he cared what she thought.
“If I step back outside right now, my energy will drain away again? Instantly?”
He paused almost around the bend and turned to regard her. Wonder and disgust warred on her face. “Not immediately, but if you try to leave. Unless I’m there to shield you. It won’t kill you—you’ll just pass out.”
She came up the stairs behind him in a huff. “Who the hell are you people?”
Her breasts swayed with each step. He hadn’t seen a bra in the clothes left out for her. Which explained why he could make out the faint outline of her nipples.
Get ahold of yourself, man.
They rounded the stairs to the first window, where Smoke was waiting to hop onto Corvin’s shoulder.
Audrey stopped to look out over the grounds. “Is this some kind of monastery or cult or something? It looks like a Renaissance fair gone wrong.”
He wanted to ignore her question, but Smoke pecked him on the ear when he didn’t answer. Ravens were particular when it came to manners. “We are Zyne. Mundanes call us witches. And by us, I mean you too.”
As they came to the mews, he slowed. The birds had gone quiet and still, but he wasn’t worried—he only felt a quiver of curiosity coming from behind the door. He wondered if Smoke had already filled them in. The raven could never keep his beak out of things and was an insatiable gossip.
“This tower is my home and where I work. This,” he opened the wooden door to the mews just enough for her to peek inside, “is off-limits. Do not touch any of my birds.” He resumed his march up the last flight of stairs. “Save the rest of your questions for orientation tomorrow. I’ve had a long day, and I still have work to do.”
“Are you always this grumpy?”
“Most people would probably say so.”
She swept past him into the kitchen and turned in a slow circle. The way she took in every detail should have put him more on edge. He hated people in his space. But when he lowered his shields to reach out to the eagle in the corner, the wave of dismay and panic from Audrey made him freeze. She felt… trapped. It was an emotion he was very familiar with, though usually from wild animals that really were captives.
On the outside, she showed nothing. Her guise was disdain for his living conditions, tinged with boredom. It would have been a very convincing act in front of someone who wasn’t an empath.
She shrugged. “Fine. Tell me where my room is, and I’ll get out of your hair.”
At that moment, two things occurred to him: one, he only had one bed, and two, the next few months would go much smoother if she were comfortable with him and not in a constant state of fight or flight. He didn’t have to be such a hard-ass. Most of his shitty day wasn’t her fault. She’d been plucked out of her life and dropped into a whole new world. He shrugged Smoke off his shoulder and tossed his robe in the chair. It looked so inviting, but first he needed to remember his manners.
“You don’t have to be afraid, Audrey. No harm will come to you here. You’re safe.” He popped open the refrigerator and pulled out two beers, setting one on the counter in front of her.
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not afraid. I just don’t like you. Any of you…Zyne.” She ignored the bottle opener he held out and popped the lid off with her teeth. “Especially the Queen Bitch.”
Her defenses went up after that comment. She was testing the water, feeling out the limits, and bracing for him to lash back. He pulsed calming energy at her, nodding as he sipped from his own bottle. “My mother can be quite trying, but she believes she’s acting in everyone’s best interest.”
She’s not always right though. He eased toward the chairs by the fireplace. As he’d hoped, Audrey followed and sank into the one across from him, her defenses slowly lowering.
“Well, she doesn’t know shit about me. I don’t belong here.”
“Really. Where do you belong?”
She took another long chug, followed by an exaggerated smack of her lips as she eyed the bottle. “Nowhere.”
“I can understand how you would feel that way, thanks to your powers. But where are you from?”
She set her empty bottle aside and slumped into the weathered brown leather of the armchair. “I just said—nowhere. I move around.”
Okay, fine. She didn’t quite want to open up to him. Yet. “So you’re… homeless?”
“I prefer nomad.”
He raised his eyebrows, fighting the urge to laugh. She appeared to be dead serious. He retrieved two more brews from the fridge. When she opened it with her teeth again, he did laugh, trying to reconcile the smug haughtiness with the blatant crudeness. Everything she did and said seemed aimed to shock.
She was daring him to look down his nose at her. Or perhaps just bracing for it? Or was she just trying on different acts and casting them aside at will? This was already more complicated than he liked. Animals were much easier to deal with. He whistled at Smoke and nodded his head toward Audrey, asking for help.
The raven flew from his perch on the mantle to the back of Audrey’s chair. To her credit, she didn’t flinch, just tilted her head to give him the side-eye, her expression somewhere between curious and annoyed.
“That’s Smoke. He probably wants to peck at your hair. He’s obsessed with hair, and you have a lot of it.”
“Um, okay. That’s a first.”
“Think of it like a dog sniffing your… you know.” He shook his head, laughing at himself. Now he was nervous? He wanted Audrey to feel comfortable here, with him, with his birds. And not just because it would make his job easier. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it had taken root, but somewhere, she’d hooked him. He wanted to know more about her.
Or are you just that pathetic and lonely that you’ll put the moves on a novice? One who might not remember he existed a few months from now. Not that he had any moves.
Smoke hopped onto Audrey’s shoulder, and she turned her face away. The rest of her body seemed petrified as the raven slowly began picking at wet, silky strands of her golden hair. Gently at first, then with more fervor as she relaxed.
Corvin noticed himself matching her energy too easily. Muscles that had gone taught relaxed slowly back into his chair. He mentally chided himself and drew back from his probe of her feelings. The way she sighed a moment later made him wish he hadn’t stopped so soon. His pants were suddenly uncomfortably tight.
She giggled, and Smoke began butting her with his head between pecks.
You are not getting jealous of a bird.
“Can he braid it for me, like in Cinderella?”
“No. He can do dreadlocks though. That would go well with your nomad image, right?”
She laughed. “Hell, no! I can’t remember the last time my hair was so clean. He better not mess it up.”
They both sobered at that. He didn’t need to read her feelings to realize this was exactly the moment she’d been trying to avoid. It wasn’t his judgment she’d been armed against, it was his pity. And he’d thoughtlessly stripped her of her armor, not realizing how exposed it left her.
She brushed Smoke from her shoulder.
He flapped to the windowsill with a cawed reprimand, and that was enough to wake the ICU patient in the dining room. The eagle screamed, her legs scratching against the sides of her crate.
Audrey leapt from her seat and tucked into a ball, covering her head.
“It’s all right.” Corvin placed a hand on her arm and pulsed calm energy into her. She took a deep breath. He held his finger to his lips, then pointed to the dining table in the opposite corner of the room. “I have a very hurt bird over there.”
“Oh.” She blinked at him, looking a little dazed, then whispered, “Sorry.”
He released his hold on her but couldn’t tear his gaze away from her face. Up close, her cheeks looked so soft, her lips so supple. There were mesmerizing flecks of gold in her blue eyes. Even the curve of her ear was inviting him to touch and learn each contour.
He was jealous of that damn bird.
He cleared his throat and glanced away. “No harm done.”
***
As soon as Corvin let go of her arm, Audrey’s heart shifted into overdrive. And then he stared at her with the most smoldering I want you eyes she’d ever seen in her life. Her stomach somersaulted, and her breath caught. There was a darkness there too, something hidden. The kind of darkness that spoke of secret desires. And she was—inconveniently—intrigued.
So, he makes you hot. Isn’t that a good thing?
It was actually sort of convenient. That way, using him to get out of here wouldn’t be such a chore. She might even enjoy it. If she were honest with herself, Corvin’s attraction to her was the angle she’d been considering, and it was thrilling to realize she hadn’t had to use any tricks to make him give it up. A few well-turned flirts, and she would have him eating out of her hand. She crept up behind where he stood at the table and peeked around his shoulder. “What kind of bird?”
“She’s a golden eagle.” He pulled back the sheet covering the bottom half of a dog crate. She caught a glimpse of bloody bandages and piercing wild eyes.
“She’s hurt bad?” Audrey rubbed at the center of her chest. It was almost as if she could feel the animal’s fear and pain. That second-long flash, seeing into that yellow eye, was going to be something she carried a long time.
He spoke in a low murmur and began cutting more bandages. “It’s pretty bad, but she’s going to make it. We’ll see if she ever flies again though.”
“What happened to her?” she whispered back.
“Buckshot. Park ranger found her on the side of the road. The rest of it she did herself because she panicked. You could take a lesson from her, actually.”
She leveled a stare at him. “I don’t panic.”
His eyes crinkled with a slight smile. “I mean you should learn not to resist when someone is trying to help you. You only end up causing unnecessary damage.”
She leaned her hip against the table and crossed her arms. His eyes dipped to her chest before he turned back to his task. “Resistance is all I have. It’s who I am. Besides, I don’t mind a good fight.”
He stared at her a moment, looking completely stunned. She was too. She hadn’t meant to be so…honest. So vulnerable. It had just come out. But it seemed to be reeling him in, so maybe she could go with it for a little bit. Maybe if he thought she was a helpless, lost girl, he would underestimate her and leave her an opening to get away.
“Tell me this, Miss Nomad: how will you like a good fight when you don’t have magic to back you up anymore? What if those skills you’ve spent years honing were gone? How long do you think you’d last out there on the streets?”
Nope, vulnerability so not for me.
She sucked in a breath to tell him off, but he squeezed her forearm and looked into her eyes. Those depths sucked her right back in, that elusive darkness that she wanted to chase into oblivion. “Or you can give us a chance. You can learn how to control your powers and probably discover new ones. You can study magic and learn where you came from and that you don’t have to be alone. You can finally belong somewhere.”
Her eyes stung, begging her to blink, but she refused to let even a single tear spill over. She grit her teeth and said the same words she told herself over and over, night after night, ever since she’d lost Jack. “I don’t need anyone.”
Corvin’s tired sigh echoed through the stillness of the room. She felt him withdraw, cede the issue, but she didn’t feel one bit victorious. “You can stay in my room. I sleep out here most nights anyway. Besides, the eagle will need tending to throughout the night.” He nodded toward the only door in the room. “It’s in there. You’ll find fresh sheets in the closet.”
Anger sparked in her chest at his blunt dismissal. He’d just flayed her wide open, waving her deepest fears around like sock puppets, and then cast her aside before she could even formulate a comeback.
What an asshat.
But she glanced at the eagle, at the feathers caked in blood, her breast heaving way too fast, her eyes struggling to stay open and alert as pain and exhaustion pulled at her. Audrey knew exactly how she felt. Corvin was right—there was a time to fight, and there was a time to heal and build up your strength for the next one. Jack always said to choose your battles.
She left him to his task and closed herself in the bedroom. There wasn’t a light switch, but a knob that controlled a medieval-looking gas chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Behind a wood-paneled wall dividing the space, she found a washroom with a shower, sink, toilet, and washing machine circa 1955.
The “closet” he’d referred to was a set of shelves and hooks behind a curtain next to the washer. The bedroom was small, but not cramped. Probably because of the sparse furnishings. There was a small woodstove off to one side. Smooth wooden branches were mounted to the walls, as if the trees outside had grown through the bricks. The giant bed was made of the same gnarled, polished wood. The other side of the room was a curved wall of stone with a bench built into it. That was it. If it hadn’t been for the books and discarded clothes scattered along the bench, she wouldn’t have thought anyone lived there.
Was this really where she was supposed to stay? Not that she hadn’t lived in far worse conditions, but she had never lived in such close quarters with a man for any length of time. She usually stayed just long enough to get a shower, eat a meal, and empty their wallets before she took off again. Getting away was not going to be so simple this time.
Not just because of the magical complications. She’d never met someone so… onto her. Corvin was not just another mark. Somehow he understood exactly what she was feeling, no matter how well she acted otherwise. It was frustrating and invigorating all at once. She suspected that none of her usual games would work on him.
That thought lit a happy fire in her belly, but she didn’t think too much about it. Her emotions were all jumbled up from the day’s events. She’d escaped from Parkview just to find herself held prisoner again, this time by a bunch of supposed witches who wanted her to join their cult. She wasn’t surprised to learn there were others like her—she knew she couldn’t be that special—but seeing it all in the flesh had pushed aside the boulder in her heart, under which were hidden all of her oldest and most secret wishes.
You can finally belong somewhere, Corvin had said.
Bitterness coated her throat as she warred with the unfamiliar feeling lightening her chest. It had been so long… she’d forgotten what hope felt like. She hadn’t known how to react.
He’d torn the layers of hurt away with ease, without knowing, she’d given him the key to her undoing. Her stomach fluttered with nerves, and that really pissed her off. She always knew what was coming, always had an exit strategy. Was always the one calling the shots. Right now, she was running through the dark.
But tomorrow… tomorrow, she would be back in the driver’s seat. Because he’d revealed a weakness too. Corvin clearly led a sad, solitary life. He was lonely. She could use that.
Just to be contrary, she climbed into the bed without changing the sheets. With her shoes on. It didn’t take long for her body to relax and her mind to drift toward sleep, which was weird because she hardly ever slept soundly. But the sheets were cool and smooth, and they smelled like the herbal soap from her delicious bath. There was no noise but the rustle of wind through the trees outside. No more screams…
This time, she didn’t fight it. She let that bone-deep exhaustion suck her down because despite being held against her will and stripped of her powers, for the first time in a long, long while, she felt like she didn’t have to sleep with one eye open. Corvin was out there, and she knew—somehow—that he wouldn’t let any harm come to her.